


Grocery Run

by YetAnotherPersona



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YetAnotherPersona/pseuds/YetAnotherPersona
Summary: Emma delivers Professor Hidgens's groceries and gets roped into an impromptu science experiment.
Relationships: Henry Hidgens & Emma Perkins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Grocery Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmSteele1234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmSteele1234/gifts).



> A fellow Starkid fan prompted me to write about Emma bringing Professor Hidgens groceries. This is the result.

Emma yanks the shitty handbrake of her useless-piece-of-garbage car and _finally_ gets it to engage properly. Holding her breath, she gingerly lifts her foot off the brake pedal, ready to slam it back down if the stupid broken-down liability starts rolling _again_... but it seems to be stable now. She counts the seconds through clenched teeth – _one, two, three –_ and then breathes out slowly and opens the door.

It’s a pain in the ass, as well, because Professor Hidgens has a perfectly good level driveway right on the other side of his gate that would be _so much easier_ to park on than the sloped road leading up to it. But for _some_ reason he still won’t let any vehicles except his own pass through it, presumably out of paranoia that someone might bring in a bomb or a listening device or a trunk full of assassins or something. The more Emma learns about the guy, the more convinced she is that he’s _completely_ insane. But he does teach well and he seems to like her, so she’s mostly willing to put up with it.

Emma unlocks the trunk and stares at the bizarre assortment of groceries the professor asked her to pick up. Supposedly you can tell a lot about someone based on their shopping list, but this collection raises more questions than it answers. The three bags of canned foods aren’t that surprising – the guy’s a hardcore doomsday prepper – but what does he need six whole cabbages for? Or an entire shelf’s worth of ready-made sushi? He lives alone, Emma’s pretty sure; there’s no way he’ll be able to eat all of this before it goes bad. Then, of course, there’s the booze – vodka, gin, whiskey, sherry, amaretto, and a case each of the store’s cheapest red and white wine. It can’t be for him – Emma’s never seen the guy touch anything alcoholic. But he’s not the type for entertaining guests, either. So what gives?

Emma heads to the gate and presses the buzzer. “Professor Hidgens?”

The speaker clicks on immediately. “Who is it?” the professor asks; he sounds panicked.

“Uh – it’s me, Emma.”

“Password?”

“ _W-widdringtona nodiflora_ ,” Emma says, trying not to stumble over the unfamiliar Latin pronunciation.

“Correct!” says the professor, somehow managing to yell and whisper at the same time. The speaker clicks off and the gate starts to grind open.

Emma returns to the trunk and brings the bags to the gate one-by-one, placing them on the ground just inside the perimeter wall. The first time she delivered Hidgens’s groceries she’d made the mistake of trying to bring them to the door. She doesn’t intend to repeat that experience – from his reaction you’d think she’d burst in through a window or something.

Hidgens appears at the front window of the house, watching Emma intently as she goes back and forth between the trunk and the gate. Emma tries to ignore the prickly discomfort of being watched – what’s the guy even looking out for?

Once the last bag is in place, Emma flashes a thumbs-up in the direction of the house and retreats to the rear of her car. Hidgens emerges from the house pushing an empty shopping cart that he brings up to the gate and starts loading with groceries. He casts occasional glances over his shoulder at Emma, as if expecting her to try and sneak up on him while his back’s turned.

He picks up the last of the bags – the one containing two of the six cabbages – and is just positioning it in the cart when he shrieks in terror and leaps about a foot backward.

“Professor Hidgens?” Emma cries, alarmed. She runs round the front of the car, towards the gate.

“Careful, Emma!” Hidgens yells, flinging out an arm in her direction. “Don’t come any closer!”

Emma freezes. Hidgens is still backing away from the cart, panic in his eyes, as he fumbles in his coat pocket with his free hand. He fishes out a pack of disposable latex gloves and pulls it open with his teeth.

“Stay where you are, Emma,” he whispers, pulling the gloves on, “and don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Okay...” Emma says, mystified. Hidgens backs up until he’s next to her, and hands her a second pair of gloves. “Put these on,” he hisses, “and stay behind me.”

Emma obeys. She still has no idea what the threat is meant to be here, but she figures it won’t hurt to play along, at least until she gets paid.

Hidgens beckons for Emma to follow him, and approaches the cart with small, nervous steps. Once he’s an arm’s length away, he reaches out with trembling hands and slowly lifts the top cabbage out of its bag, handling it as though frightened it might explode.

“Do you see this, Emma?” he whispers, turning slowly and holding the cabbage out. “Do you know what that is?”

It looks like a regular cabbage to Emma. She leans in slightly to see if she can spot anything unusual...

Oh. There’s a little green caterpillar wriggling across one of the leaves.

“Uh...” Emma says, uncertain. Surely that can’t be what she’s meant to be seeing.

“Do you know what that is?” Hidgens repeats.

“A... caterpillar?” Emma ventures.

“Aha!” cries Hidgens. “It _looks_ like a caterpillar, yes. But how can we be _sure,_ Emma?” He narrows his eyes expectantly, the way he does when he’s just asked a really tough question in a botany lecture.

“Ummm...” Emma stalls, unsure if the Hidgens is being serious. “Well... it looks like a caterpillar. It’s moving like one. And caterpillars eat plants, so it makes sense that you’d find one on a cabbage. Is there any reason to think it’s anything else?”

Hidgens nods, apparently satisfied. “All excellent reasons, Emma. You think like a true scientist. But!” – he places the cabbage back in the cart – “a true scientist must never accept things at face value. A true scientist must always be asking questions.” He grips the handle of the cart and starts pushing it up the driveway. “Come with me, Emma. We must investigate this ‘caterpillar’ more fully. For all we know it could be a robotic facsimile, or a bioengineered weapon, or – or something!”

Emma hangs back for a second, wondering if she should just demand her payment and leave before things get any weirder. But she can’t deny being curious about what goes on in this mysterious fortress that Professor Hidgens calls home, and she may not get another chance to find out. So she follows him to the front door, and into the house.

There’s nothing immediately unusual about the house on the inside. It’s larger than you’d expect for one college professor living alone, but the décor isn’t ostentatious; in fact, there’s hardly any at all. The walls of the hallway are bare, and the curtains are an unattractive shade of beige. This is the home of someone who fancies his mind to be on much higher things than interior design.

Hidgens pushes the shopping cart through a door at the end of the hall, flicking the light switch on his way in. Emma follows him, and is taken by surprise; the room is kitted out like an operating theatre, white and sterile and lit with harsh flourescents. There’s cupboards lining the walls, a sink in one corner, and a table with a microscope at the very centre.

“First things first, Emma,” says Hidgens, with an air of intense efficiency about him. “We must contain the specimen. Keep an eye on it while I find a suitable receptacle.”

Emma has a split-second of confusion before she realises he’s still talking about the caterpillar. She nods and goes to stand next to the cart. The caterpillar is still sitting on the same part of the cabbage as before. Once Hidgens is satisfied that Emma is keeping watch, he turns and rummages in one of the cupboards. After a few seconds he emerges with a lidded plastic box and a thin metal rod.

“This should do it. Stand back, Emma!”

Emma stands back, and Hidgens walks over to the cart and carefully uses the rod to lift the caterpillar off the cabbage and into the box. He quickly shuts the lid and places the box on the counter.

“Excellent! I’m afraid, Emma, that I cannot in good conscience carry out experiments on the specimen while you are present. Who knows how it might react? No, that shall have to wait. However, the afflicted vegetable.”

“We...?” says Emma. “Are you sure you want–?”

“But of course, Emma!” Hidgens exclaims. “I shall need a lab assistant on hand, and I believe you are more than up to the task.”

Emma hesitates, uncertain, but... what the hell? She hasn’t got any other plans for the afternoon; might as well humour the guy.

“Okay,” she says. “What do you need?”

“Fantastic!” Hidgens cries. “First things first, ensure your gloves are fitted properly – excellent. Now.” He turns and strides over to the microscope in the middle of the room. “Take a leaf from the cabbage, Emma, and pass it to me.”

Emma peels one of the outer leaves from the cabbage and holds it out to Hidgens, who takes it from her without shifting his eyes from the microscope. He switches its light on and places the leaf under the lens, turning it over and muttering to himself.

“Fetch a glass of water, Emma,” he instructs at length. “Far right cupboard.”

Emma gets a glass and fills it from the sink, then brings it to Hidgens. He takes the leaf and dunks it in the water, then holds it under the microscope again. After a moment of silence he straightens up with a satisfied grunt and puts the leaf down on the table.

“Well, Emma,” he says. “It seems to be a perfectly ordinary cabbage leaf.”

“Cool,” says Emma, trying not to sound too obviously irritated. “Shall I–”

“But!” says Hidgens. “We are scientists, are we not? And what must we do when we are gathering data?”

“Uh...” Emma wracks her brains. “We need to... get a statistically valid sample?”

“Ex-ACTly, Emma!” cries Hidgens, delighted. “A single leaf from a single cabbage means nothing. We ought to test at least three leaves from every cabbage at our disposal. That way we can be sure to capture any anomalous results, should they arise.”

This has to be a joke, right? Emma scans her professor’s earnest face, but finds no trace of humour or mockery. Maybe he is just that crazy? A couple of minutes of lab work is one thing, but there’s no way Emma’s going to hang around to test, what, eighteen identical cabbage leaves? She takes a breath, preparing to put her foot down.

Hidgens must sense her resolve, because he looks apologetic. “I understand that you will have other business to attend to, Emma. Rest assured, if this could wait I would not ask you to do it. But we need to act while the produce is fresh. Will you help me?”

Emma is surprised to find something inside her soften at his plea. She recognises the loneliness in her teacher’s eyes all too well; it’s the same loneliness she sees in the eyes of Hatchetfield’s commuters when they rush through Beany’s for their morning coffee; it’s the same loneliness she sees reflected in her laptop screen when the battery dies during an all-nighter. As little as she fancies the idea of wasting her precious afternoon dunking cabbage leaves in water, she suddenly can’t bring herself to leave.

“Okay, professor,” she says. “I’ll help out. What do you need?”

A little over an hour later, with leaves strewn across the table and a whole range of dyes and intruments out on the counter, Hidgens announces that the tests are done. To his chagrin, all six cabbages are indeed cabbages, all the way to their cores. Whatever conspiracy he was hoping to uncover, he hasn’t found any evidence of it here.

“Well, Emma,” he sighs. “It seems that there is nothing untoward to be found in these specimens.” He glances at his watch. “I apologise for keeping you, but I hope you will believe me when I tell you that we have done essential work here today.”

“Uh-huh,” says Emma, mostly just relieved that he’s letting her go willingly. “Glad I could help.”

“I hope you will allow me to walk you back to your car?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Hidgens walks at Emma’s side out of the lab, down the hallway, and out to the gate. It’s only once Emma’s opened her car door that he claps his hand to his brow and exclaims, “Goodness, Emma! I almost forgot your payment!”

“Oh yeah,” says Emma, embarrassed. She’d been ready to drive away without being reimbursed.

“Here.” Hidgens pulls out his wallet, rifles through it, and hands Emma three hundred-dollar bills. “Thank you very much for your assistance.”

Emma stares at the proffered bills, dumbfounded. Three hundred dollars... that’s more than twice the cost of the groceries and gas combined. “Um, professor... are you sure–?”

“If it’s a little over, consider it thanks for your invaluable support in the laboratory,” Hidgens says. “I insist.”

“Okay,” says Emma, taking the money. “Thanks.” She feels like she should say more, but the show of kindness has left her tongue-tied. A hundred and fifty dollars extra; that’s enough to get her handbrake fixed, or for two good pairs of shoes, or a month of food... she’ll have to think long and hard about how best to spend it.

“Farewell for now,” says Hidgens blithely. “I will see you in class on Monday, I trust?”

“For sure. Bye for now, professor!”

Emma gets into her car and switches on the ignition – unbelievably, the engine starts on the first try. Hidgens heads back up the driveway toward his front door, and the gate begins to close automatically behind him. He doesn’t look back before entering the house, but once inside he appears at the window and gives Emma a friendly wave, which she returns. The gate finally shuts with a dull _clunk._

Emma turns in the road and drives away; glancing in her rear mirror, she catches a glimpse of Hidgens still waving from his window. She smiles fondly to herself; then her car rounds a bend, and he goes out of sight.


End file.
